The Minister of Chance: The Tiger review

March 29, 2013

The Tiger is the fourth full episode of The Minister of Chance, the audio spin-off of Death Comes to Time starring Julian Wadham as the “defrocked Time Lord”. This is the first episode of 2013, and hopefully we’ll get more than one episode this year, because this story is starting to speed up. In this instalment, the Minister and Kitty return to Tanto to find out what has been happening in their absence.

The result is another enjoyable 45-minute adventure, but one that feels a little too derivative of Death Comes to Time still. The plan of the villains here is so much like that of General Tannis in that story, that it beggars belief that the Minster doesn’t comment on it here. But a villainous Paul McGann and Paul Darrow are complete pleasures to listen to, even when they’re a little obvious. (My favourite actor in these stories is probably Jenny Agutter as Professor Cantha, so I hope she gets more involved with the main plot in future instalments.)

Where the story gets a little stronger is where it gets a little original. I’m interested in the revelations about the backstory of Kitty here, and I’m intrigued by the hints given to us about wider events by the Horseman… though I wish that his voice was a little easier to understand. (Indeed, this story seemed a little rough on sound design, with a couple scenes where background sound was foregrounded above speeches. It was obviously a deliberate choice, like the listener is hearing from a distance, but one that didn’t quite come off.)

There’s a decent cliffhanger at the end of The Tiger, so I’m looking forward to hearing where the story goes next. Step by step, we’re getting there.

The Tiger (by Dan Freeman) was released by Radio Static in March 2013.

Written by

Steve Mollmann is a Ph.D. student in English, studying the depiction of science and scientists in nineteenth-century Britain. With his Secret Writing Partner, Michael Schuster, he wrote the novel Star Trek: A Choice of Catastrophes; he's also written or cowritten stories in various Star Trek and Iris Wildthyme collections. His nonfiction has appeared on Tor.com, in academic journals, and in a science-fiction textbook. You can read more of his reviews at Science's Less Accurate Grandmother.